USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania : from its first beginnings to the present time, including chapters of newly-discovered early Wyoming Valley history, together with many biographical sketches and much genealogical material. Volume II > Part 70
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At an interview held hy the Hon. O. H. Marshall of New York, in 1864, with the venerable chief "Seneca White", at the house of the latter on the Cattaraugus Reservation, he told Mr. Marshall that " 'Old Smoke' was the most influential man among the Senccas in the Revolutionary War, and that he opposed the Indians taking any part in the war."
Sayenqueraghta was succeeded in the office of "Bearer of the Smoking Brand" by a Seneca chief who was thereafter known as Gui-en-gwah-toh ("The Smoke has Disappeared"), or "Young King." He was born ahout 1760 near the site of the present village of Canandaigua, New York, and was probably the nephew, on his mother's side, of the "Old King." "Young King" was a inan of lofty stature and her- culean mold, and of great force of character, "though not endowed with the rare intellectual qualities which rendered his uncle the most influential Seneca chieftain of his period." Col. Thomas Procter (see Chapter XVIII), who was delegated by President Washington in 1791 to treat with the Indians, visited the Senecas at Buffalo Creek in April of that year. "Young King" was then apparently the leading man of his nation, or second only to the great war-chief, "Cornplanter" (see page 164, Vol. I). He seemed to be largely under the influence of Col. John Butler and the British. Procter reported that " 'Young King' was fully regimentaled as a Colonel-red, faced with blue-as belonging to some royal regiment, and equipped with a pair of the best epaulets."
During the War of 1812 "Young King" espoused the cause of the United States against the British, and in an engagement was seriously wounded. In his earlier days he was addicted to intemperance, but on his conversion to Christianity he hecame a zealous advocate of temperance, as well as the lead- ing promoter of education and progress in his tribe. During his more reckless days, in a hrawl-where the testimony shows he was not the aggressor-he lost an arm and suffered other mutilation; and yet to the last his gigantic figure and commanding features "wore the grandeur of a desolated and battered Colossus." "He was the first man who built a rod of fence on the Buffalo Reservation, where the mis- sionaries first resided; and often, in the cold days of Winter, would be seen on Saturday crossing the creek in his little canoe, to see if the church were supplied with fuel for the Sabbath, and if it were not, with his one hand wielded the ax and chopped the little pile, which he also carried to the door.to be sure that it was ready for the morning service." His manners are said to have heen peculiarly suave and refined, while his hospitality and benevolence were proverbial. He died in 1835, and was buried in the old mission cemetery at East Buffalo; but in Octoher, 1884, his remains were removed and, to- gether with those of "Red Jacket" and thirteen other Seneca chiefs, reinterred in Forest Lawn Cem- etery, Buffalo, with imposing ceremonies, under the auspices of the Buffalo Historical Society.
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been called. In 1777 and 1778 he was, as noted on pages 935 and 965, the " principal war-chief of the Senecas," and had " almost an unlimited command over the Six Nations." Although then an aged man, he was still unusually robust and active, and upon him, more than any other chief of the Six Nations, Major Butler relied for effective assist- ance in his projected incursions upon the frontier settlements of New York and Pennsylvania.
Butler and his "Rangers " arrived at Kanadesaga about the 10th or 12th of May, and on the 15th the former wrote the following letter* to Sir Guy Carleton and despatched it to him at Quebec by the hands of Capt. Walter N. Butler, who had just escaped from Albany (in the man- ner described on page 930) and joined his father at Kanadesaga.
"Sir .- Having an opportunity by Capn Butler, who has been so fortunate as to make his escape from the Rebels (being under sentence of death with them), I thought it my duty to acquaint your Excellency of my arrival here with a body of ' Rangers.' . I have had a meeting with several of the principal Chiefs of the Seneca Nation, who express the greatest desire to join me in an attack on the Frontiers of the rebellious Colonies. I amli to have a general meeting of all the Chiefs and Warriors of the Senaca Nation in a few days, in order to their proceeding with me to the Yonandala, t on the Susquehanna River, which I have fixed as a place of Rendezvous for the Warriors of the Five Nations, as being near the inhabitants & where I can supply myself with Provisions from the Provinces of New York, Jersey, or Pensilvania; & likewise where a number of friends to Govern- ment are to join me-of whom twenty-six have come to me since my leaving Niagara.
"There is just now a party of Senakies [Senecas] come in who have had an action with a number of the Rebel forces on the Ohio, in which the Indians prevailed, drove the Rebels into their stockade fort, took two prisoners & thirteen Scalps. The Indians lost one man killed and four wounded. There is still one hundred & fifty warriors out on the back of Jersey & Pensilvania Governments, whose return I expect dayly. There is none gone on the Frontiers of New York, except Lieut. [Barent] Frey of the 'Rangers ' in company with Joseph Brant, who I have sent to make an attempt to bring off the Mohawks in the Rebels' country, as we mean in a body to strike that part of the Country. " I have the greatest prospect of completing the body of ' Rangers' your Excellency was pleased to empower me to raise, on my arrival in the back settlements of the Colo- nists. I must refer your Excellency to Capt. Butler for the intelligence in this quarter, as I have communicated to him every particular that has come to my knowledge. Per- mit me to assure your Excellency I shall not leave anything undone in my power to for- ward his Majesty's Service & to join the Southern Army. I am, &c.,
[Signed] "JOHN BUTLER."
Butler found the Senecas suffering severely from the lack of both food and clothing, through the stoppage of the usual channels of trade by the war; but, with great unanimity, the tribe was still resolute in its hostility to the Americans. A day or two after his arrival at Kanade- saga Butler was joined by Joseph Brant, who, in the latter part of the previous January, had set out from Fort Niagara for the "Indian bound- aries," as noted on page 964. Halsey (in his "The Old New York Frontier") says : "Early in the year [1778] Brant had reached Oghi- waga and Unadilla. His main purpose was not to kill frontiersmen, but to obtain food-food for his own men and for those of Butler, who
* The original is among the "Haldimand Papers," B. M. 21,765, CV : 39.
¡ Unadilla (first mentioned on page 451, Vol. I) was located on both side's of the East, or North, Branch of the Susquehanna River, in the present counties of Otsego and Delaware, New York, just east of where the Unadilla, or Tianderha, River empties into the Susquehanna. "As the crow flies," it was ninety.three miles south-east of Kanadesaga. Halsey says that by the Autumn of 1777 "not a *
patriot remained in Unadilla. Indians were fortifying the place. * To Unadilla meanwhile went
deserters from the American army, and runaway negroes. By the middle of November Unadilla had become a haunt of some of the worst elements brought into activity by the Border Wars." Late in the Spring of 1778 a committee of Tryon County, New York, reported to the Council of Safety: "We have lately had a scouting party to Unadilla, who gave us information that a number of disaffected people have collected at that place, and from appearances they are making preparations for some expedition. Some say it is meditated against the frontier of Ulster County, while others say it is intended against this county. Unadilla is a receptacle for all desertions from the army, runaway negroes, and other bad people. We therefore judge it extremely necessary to have that nest eradicated, and until that is done, we can never enjoy our possessions in peace, for these villains carry off all the cattle they can find, besides robbing the well-affected inhabitants." The persons thus described by the Tryon County comn. mittee were undoubtedly the "friends to Government" who were expected to join Major Butler, as he had reported to Governor Carleton.
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expected soon to follow him into the Susquehanna Valley, his destina- tion being Wyoming. Brant also aimed to collect men who, as Tories, would serve inder Butler, and was 'not to fight or make any alarm. If possible, to avoid it.' From Oghwaga he went first into the Delaware Valley, where he got about seventy head of cattle and some horses, while sixty or seventy inhabitants joined his forces and returned with him to Oghiwaga. For Brant's assistance Butler had sent forward to Unadilla a man named John Young,* and to Ogliwaga one named McGinnis, a former Susquehanna settler who had turned Tory."
Butler almost immediately despatched Brant and Lieutenant Frey of the " Rangers " from Kanadesaga, with a small party of "Rangers " and Indians, " to bring off the Mohawks"-as Butler reported to Sir Guy Carleton in the letter reprinted on page 971. The remnant of the Mohawk tribe still dwelt in the heart of the Mohawk Valley, about 125 miles due east of Kanadesaga, in the present counties of Herkimer and Montgomery, New York, and thither Brant and Frey directed their steps. Towards the end of May Butler and his "Rangers" set out from Kanadesaga-not for Unadilla (which place, one would presume from a reading of Butler's letter of May 15th to Sir Guy Carleton, they were intending to reach as soon as possible), but for Chemung, an Indian town of fifty or sixty houses on the north bank of the Chemung, or Tioga, River (mentioned on page 34, Vol. I), some eight or ten miles south-east of the present city of Elmira. Chemung lay very close to the New York-Pennsylvania boundary-line, was "about two days' jour- ney from Oghwaga" (frequently mentioned hereinbefore), and, "as the crow flies," was sixty-two miles south-south-east of Kanadesaga-from which place it could be easily and quickly reached by way of Seneca Lake.
Butler reached Chemung about the 1st or 2d of June. In the mean- time (011 May 30th) Brant had fought the battle of Cobleskill, shortly after which Sergeant John Young of Butler's Rangers, in the " Old England District," on Buttermilk Creek, in what is now Otsego County, publicly read a proclamation from Major Butler, "desiring all the friends to the Government to join him, and to bring in all their cattle, together with their wives and families, and they should be kindly re- ceived by the said Butler." About that time Brant's men lay near Charlotte River, some twenty miles from Cherry. Valley, and "as one party came in, another went out, to the destruction of the smaller set- tlements."
At Fort Schuyler, New York, under the date of June 15, 1778, James Dean, an agent in the Indian Department under the control of Congress, wrote to General Schuyler, in part as followst:
"I have just received an authentic account that the belt some time since sent to the Cayugas and Senecas, to call them to a proposed meeting at Onondaga, was returned last Saturday [June 13th]. What reply the Senecas made to it I have not been able to learn. Most likely they took no notice of it, as of several others which have been sent for the
same purpose. *
*
* The substance of Mr. [John] Butler's late conference with the Indians at Kanadesaga was to desire them to attend him on his proposed expedition; which the Senecas refused to do, because so large a party of their people were down in our country. He has, however, collected a considerable party of Indians of various tribes, with whom-as he gives out-he is determined to join Joseph Brant upon the frontiers of this country. It is supposed he is by this time as far on his way as Onologwage [Oghwaga]."
* Formerly of Westmoreland, and previously mentioned several times in these pages. He was a Ser- geant in Butler's Rangers. See page 944.
+ See "Public Papers of George Clinton," II : 457.
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In the " Public Papers of George Clinton " (III : 539) is printed an affidavit of one Robert Jones, made before Henry Wisner, Esq., at Mini- sink, July 10, 1778, in which occur the following paragraphs :
" Joseph Brant came there* [about the first of June, 1778] with six Indians and two or three Green Coat soldierst and stayd two days. He ordered the witness, with nine families who lived at that place, to go with him, if friends to Government; if not, to take their own risk. Himself and four families with said Brant went to Unadilla; the other five soon followed. Brant did not insist on their going, but would take their cattle. Neither would he protect theni unless they went with him. After that the witness and one John Falkner went with said Brant to Oghwaga. After being there some time an express came from Butler to Brant, ordering him to march immediately to Tioga [Point]; which orders Brant immediately obeyed, and stayd eight or nine days, saving, when he returned, that he had been at a treaty; that the Indians refused to join in an expedition to the northward unless they first were assisted to cut off the inhabetants of Susque- hanna; at which treaty it was agreed that Butler should go to Wyoming, and that Brant should stay at Oghwaga. Brant, in the meantime, was to collect all the provisions he could against the time Butler was to be at Oghwaga. * *
" Brant then formed an expedition against Lackawaxen for the purpose of collect- ing provisions, and went one day on his march, when an express was sent affer him requiring him to return immediately [to Oghwaga], on account that a party from the northward was expected to attack Unadilla. Brant immediately returned, and despatched all the white men he could to the assistance of Unadilla, and two days after-being last Sunday [July 5, 1778]-said Brant followed after, with all the Indians at that place [Oghwaga]. * The examinant also says that Butler is not to come down to Mini- sink (as he understood from Brant), but was to go from Wyoming on an expidition against Cherry Valley, and to be joined by Brant."
The large body of Senecas that had been out on the war path along the West Branch of the Susquehanna having returned to Kanadesaga, Sayenqueraghta and 300 or 350 warriors came south from there by way of Seneca Lake and Chemung, and joined Butler and his "Rangers" about the 15th or 20th of June at Tioga Point (see page 34, Vol. I), whither the latter had proceeded from Chemung some days previously. Before leaving Chemung Butler had sent a messenger to Brant at Ogh- waga, bidding him repair without delay to Tioga Point. Butler had received information concerning an expected movement of Sir Henry Clinton's army, which, if it took place, would cause him (Butler) to change the plans laid out for his campaign. This news was to the effect that Clinton was about to evacuate Philadelphia and march for New York. (The evacuation actually took place on June 18th.) Brant arrived promptly at Tioga Point, where a conference, or council, between Butler and the chief Indians there gathered was held-as related in the affidavit of Robert Jones hereinbefore quoted fromn.
Halsey says that Brant's failure to take part in the expedition against Wyoming "was consistent with his career in this war. His hostility and that of the Mohawks under him was not against Pennsyl- vania, but against the New York frontier, where lands, rightfully theirs, were theirs no more, and where lived the men who had overthrown them at Oriskany. That Butler should go to Wyoming was also con- sistent with the work Butler had undertaken to do. Butler represented the cause of England, not the cause of the Indians, and there in the Wyoming Valley lay one of the most populous and defenseless settle- ments that existed remote from the seaboard. To attack and destroy it, was to invite detachments for its defense at the expense of the American army which Howe, Cornwallis and Clinton sought to overthrow."
From the conference at Tioga Point Brant hurried back to Oghi- waga, leaving Butler and his "Rangers" and Sayenqueraghta and his
* The "Old England District," previously mentioned.
+ Butler's Rangers, some of whom then, and all of whom later, wore green uniforms.
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Senecas at Tioga Point to complete the preparations for their expedition down the Susquehanna ; and there we will leave them for a short time. On June 18th Brant reached Springfield, near the head of Otsego Lake, and destroyed it. He then destroyed Andrustown and other settlements near by. In a report made at the time to Governor Clinton of New York concerning these occurrences it was stated:
"Several people, who had been made prisoners, and did escape, affirm that Brant was the commander, and that his party consists of about 500. So much is certain that his number encreaseth daily; many very lately did run off, moved by disaffection; others join him, moved by fear, and several are forced to take up arms against us, or to swear allegiance to the King of Britain. We are informed that Brant boasted openly that he will be joined at Unadilla by Butler, and that within eight days he will return and lay the whole country waste."
The reader has undoubtedly noticed that in the petition presented to the Connecticut Assembly by Representative Anderson Dana, under the date of June 10, 1778 (see page 963), mention is made of the fact that the Indians had then recently "destroyed inany persons near the head of the East Branch " of the Susquehanna. This (as explained on page 972) was the work of Joseph Brant and his band.
As soon as the Assembly had acted on the aforementioned petition, in the manner noted, Representatives Denison and Dana hastened from Hartford to their homes in Westmoreland. Here, upon their arrival about June 20th, they found the inhabitants wrought up to a high pitch of excitement, because the situation of affairs at and near Tioga Point, considered in connection with certain events which had taken place in the upper settlements of Westmoreland, portended an early and a devas- tating invasion of Wyoming Valley. They learned, among other things, that in the latter part of May Sebastian Strope, who resided with his family at Wysox, in the "North District " of Westmoreland (see page 947), had come down to Wilkes-Barré to procure help to aid in remov- ing his family and belongings to a place of safety down the river. Upon his return to Wysox after a few days' absence he had found his family . gone and his house in ashes. Shortly after his departure a band of Indians had appeared at his home, captured the inmates, plundered the house and set it on fire. The captives were taken to Tioga Point, where they were given over to the custody of an officer of the "Rangers ;" and at that place they remained during the carrying on of the preparations for the attack upon Wyoming.
On June 2d John Jenkins, Jr., had arrived at the home of his father (Jenkins' Fort, in Exeter), having a short time before escaped from the custody of his Indian guards while being taken from Albany to Kana- desaga, as mentioned on page 806. He brought information that a large number of the Tories from up the Susquehanna had wintered at Fort Niagara with the British and Indians; that they liad been insolent and abusive to tlie prisoners from Westmoreland detained there, and had threatened to return in the Spring to their deserted homes on the Sus- quehanna, bring the Indians with them, drive the settlers off, and take possession of the country themselves ; that a plan of this sort had been concocted at Niagara before he (Jenkins) left there for Montreal, early in the previous April. This was the first reliable information the people of Wyoming had received relative to the threatened invasion of their settlements ; although it had been known much earlier that an attack upon the frontiers, somewhere, was to be made by tlie forces collected at Niagara. However, as Mr. Jenkins had left Niagara in April, he was
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not aware that Major Butler and his " Rangers " liad set out from there for Kanadesaga a month later; and furthermore, neither this fact nor the fact that Butler and his forces had arrived on the borders of West- moreland was yet known to the inhabitants of the town.
On the 5th of June a band of Indians accompanied by six Tories- presumably " Rangers"-had come down the river to the neighborhood of Tunkhannock, where they captured Elisha Wilcox, - - Pierce, and some other settlers, and plundered the homes of still others, who man- aged to escape down the river to Wilkes-Barré, where they arrived in the night of the 6th. The news brought by these fugitives caused much excitement, and on the next day-although it was Sunday-the inhabi- tants of the Valley set to work to strengthen their various fortifications. Many of the inhabitants of Exeter removed from their scattered and unprotected homes to the shelter of either Jenkins' Fort or Wintermute's Fort (see pages 886 and 924), while the inhabitants of the upper end of Pittston removed to Pittston Fort (see page 885).
On the 12th of June William Crooks and Asa Budd of Kingston had gone up the river a little way beyond Tunkhannock on a hunting and scouting expedition. Crooks remained at the abandoned house of John Secord (who was with the enemy) to spend the night, while Budd went a couple of miles farther up the river, to hunt down by fire-light. When the latter was within a short distance of Secord's he discovered a number of persons fording the river below. Putting out his light he inade for the shore and informed Crooks of what he had seen. Crooks, with his gun in his hands, ran out of the house, but, having left his ammunition behind, returned for it. Just as he was coming out the second time he was shot dead by an Indian, who, with his companions, immediately fled. This was the first life of a white inan taken within the bounds of Westmoreland by the Indians since the massacre of Octo- ber, 1763.
On June 17th a party of six men from Jenkins' Fort had gone up the river in two canoes to endeavor to discover the whereabouts of the enemy. The men in the forward canoe landed about six miles below Tunkhannock, on the west side of the river, opposite the locality later known as Osterhout's, or La Grange, and ascended the bank. There they discovered a band of armed Indians and white inen running towards them. They gave an alarm, hurried back to their canoe, and endeav- ored to paddle to the farther side of an island, situated at that point, in order to escape the fire of their pursuers which was being poured in upon them. The canoe in which were Miner Robbins (an enlisted inan in Captain Hewitt's company), Joel Phelps and Stephen Jenkins was fired upon, and Robbins was mortally wounded (he died the next day) and Phelps was severely wounded. Jenkins escaped unhurt, although his paddle was shivered to pieces in his hands by a shot. In the attack- ing party was Elijah Phelps, a private in Butler's Rangers (see page 945), who was a brother of Joel Phelps and a brother-in-law of Miner Robbins, abovementioned.
The foregoing incidents increased the anxiety already distractingly painful. But an event soon occurred of more exciting importance. Two Indians who had formerly lived in Wyoming and were acquainted withi the inhabitants, came down the river with their squaws on a visit, pro- fessing warm friendship; but there was a suspicion that they were spies,
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and directions were given that they should be carefully watched. A11 old companion of one of them, with more than Indian cunning, profess- ing his attachment to the natives, gave his visitor drink after drink of rum, when the latter, in his maudlin condition, avowed that the Indians were preparing to cut off the Wyoming settlements-the attack to be inade soon ; and that he and his companions had come down to see and report how things were. Thereupon the two Indians were seized and placed in confinement, while the squaws were sent away.
About the first of June Lieut. Col. Zebulon Butler had come to Wilkes-Barré on leave of absence from his regiment, which, formning a part of the brigade commanded by Brig. Gen. Samuel H. Parsons (see page 657), in the northern ariny commanded by Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates, was stationed near the Hudson River, not far from West Point. Immediately upon his arrival here Colonel Butler learned enough of the situation of affairs to convince him that direct and strenuous efforts ought to be made to properly protect the inhabitants of Wyoming Valley against the antici- pated incursion of the enemy; therefore, securing a fresh horse, he set out for York, in York County, Pennsylvania, which, since September 30, 1777, had been the seat of the General Government, and where the Continental Congress was then in session .* Arriving at his destination after a tedious journey of several days, Colonel Butler repaired without delay to the War Office and made an earnest appeal for the sending of a detachment of Con- tinental troops to Wyoming. He asked that-whether other troops were available or not-at least the two Westmoreland Independent Companies of Durkee and Ransom should be despatched to assist in defending the families and property of their members against the invading savages.
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